


tommy's victory

by honeydowo



Series: strawberry lemonade (and things will be okay again) [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Happy Ending, Family Bonding, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Panic Attacks, Recovery, References to Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, Trauma, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:46:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28366377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeydowo/pseuds/honeydowo
Summary: Tommy comes back to himself on the edge of a shaking tower, vision fraying around the edges as looking through an old kaleidoscope tinted yellow by being left in the sunlight too long, fragmented and crystallised.He draws in an unsteady breath.And he realizes he's still alive.
Relationships: Technoblade & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: strawberry lemonade (and things will be okay again) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2110977
Comments: 11
Kudos: 265





	tommy's victory

**Author's Note:**

> hey hey!  
> quick disclaimer: this story includes references to abuse and suicide, as well as as panic attacks! if this is triggering to you, please don't read! your safety always comes first <3

Tommy comes back to himself on the edge of a shaking tower, vision fraying around the edges as looking through an old kaleidoscope tinted yellow by being left in the sunlight too long, fragmented and crystallised.

He draws in an unsteady breath.

And he realizes he's still alive.

The wind whips his hair ferociously in smaller and smaller pirouettes, and his eyelashes have glazed over with a thin layer of snow - beneath him, the ground stays barely visible under white clouds. 

Once, Tommy might've thought the sight to look inviting. 

Now, he can feel his heart beat fiercely in his chest, sees his breath in little puffs of white air (smoke signals, like summer camp, a triumphant _I'm still alive!_ ) and marvels at the way his fingers flex, not disjointed as in grayscale memories of beckoning painted smiles and holes in the ground-

He ends the thought there.

And with one single, decisive step-

Tommy plummets off the tower - 

-into the cold water below.

And he remains alive.

\---

The way to Techno's house is icy and vicious. 

The snow settles into his skin and rests in his bones until every step brings the sickening crack of disuse, merely a skeleton stumbling through a hellscape of ice.

But his heart adamantly refuses to stop beating.

Tommy is almost glad for it, in the distant way he's been feeling everything now, through layers of cotton and wool soaking up but the tiniest drops of emotion.

Up on the weathertop, the world had looked so small - puppets affair, glorified dollhouses and rivers but the track of a single droplet of water. The desolation of ice had looked as a small stretch of freezing desert, easily crossed in a day.

Now, day and night are spent walking in a haze of memory and distorted reality, the voice of a long lost brother clinging to his soaked shirt.

_( "Techno lives just over there. Few days walk at most", Dream says with a slight incline of the head to the west._

_His painted smile has chipped away slightly in the right corner, but Tommy doesn't mention it._

_He turns his gaze towards the west, the blue horizon meeting the soft green hills beneath the shimmer of dying sunlight; and wonders why his brother has forsaken him._

_Dream grins underneath his mask.)_

His shirt is ripped, pants torn by blade and bushes alike. He has no shoes.

Tommy stumbles, and for a second, contemplates sinking into the welcome embrace of the snow.

Once more, he thinks of Theseus dying in exile.

And he knows he cannot perish like that.

\---

The tin soldier marches on.

\---

There's the hot pressure of something on top of him, and Tommy struggles and struggles but he can't seem to push it off- 

- _the great heat of the Nether is mesmerising, and Tommy watches the lava pulse and blubber and spit out little bits of fire as if it were alive and he takes a step forward-_

_-Dream tackles him to the ground before he can fall, pressing down on him until he can't breathe anymore and the damp air sticks in his lungs and Dream will kill him-_

_-"It's not your time to die yet."_

Something wet and cold drips from his chin and there's someone next to him to wipe it away but the touch burns and burns until his face has melted into a puddle of wax and his fist connects with something that feels like bone.

"Don't fucking touch me!"- 

_-"Nobody cares about you", Dream says, and he smiles down at where Tommy is sitting - alone and cowering, as a chess pawn before the queen, or, a certain doom._

_He can feel the tears tear through his cheeks with acidic delight-_

_-Dream wipes them away with a sickening smile, twisting just beyond unrecognizable. "Remember, I'm your friend."_

The window is open and the cool air strokes his hair, feathered out on the pillow, with gentle intent. With the cold breeze, little flowers of ash bloom in through the window, and Tommy chokes and chokes on them until he cannot see through the kaleidoscope haze and Dream's laughter echoes and echoes in the tiny room and he's doomed- 

_-as soon as he sees Dream, he has a hole dug and his stuff placed inside neatly. Dream ruffles his hair each time he remembers, and Tommy would've liked to hate himself for the glimmer of proudness it instills in him, if there were anyone left to pretend for. He watches the ash of what were once things he cared about rise into the sky, and thinks of Wilbur._

"Techno! Phil! Wilbur! Techno.. I'm sorry, please I'm sorry, please don't leave me, please, I didn't mean it, I'm sorry… please…"-

- _The storm rages, and Dream puts a scarred hand on his back in the mockery of comfort._

_Lightning cracks across the sky like a whip, a parody of a cruel, twisting smile illuminating the porcelain white of Dream's mask and Tommy's shaking hands in agonizing detail._

_"Don't worry, Tommy. I'm here for you. You don't need to be afraid. Shhh… it's fine! Hm, I wonder what Techno and Phil are doing now. They've always loved thunderstorms, haven't they? Oh, I'm sorry, shhh, don't worry! I'm sure they haven't forgotten you. Or, well, maybe… no, surely not. But I do wonder why they're not here to comfort you.."-_

_-Tommy curls further into himself, a spiral ever turning inwards, and the world moves along. No one cares._

The rain comes down in screaming drumming beats against his window, a downpour of biblical greatness, and he can feel it tear through his skin and once again fester in his bones, inhabit his spine and darken his eyes the colour of a troubled sky. It turns to ice in the cold, and there's a rigidness about it Tommy could never love. 

_But here, in the heart of the storm, there is only a great quiet-_

_-he builds weathertop for one sole purpose. And when he fails that, too-_

_-Tommy finally remembers how to_ **_see_**.

\---

When the time comes,

Tommy wakes up.

\---

Techno remembers his little brother.

(Both of them, as if it could still matter.)

He remembers Tommy - the vivacity of his eyes as the brightest spring morning, dew still fresh on the grass and the sun barely setting.

He remembers laughter loud enough to wake him when he was dozing off on Wilbur's shoulder, remembers days spent running through the woods and joking without a care in the world.

Most importantly, Techno remembers his brother's face - unscarred, yet untouched by the world.

He remembers his little brother better than himself, because what could characterize him more than the kid he watched grow up? 

What lay before him now, though an exact copy of Tommy in every physical aspect, could simply not be the child he had left at Phil's house at fourteen, watched fight against a tyrannical ruler with barely sixteen.

This was not the vivacious boy, encompassing all of greatness and strength with a naive vulnerability, this was the remains of someone who had not only had their childhood, but also their life taken away from them, their will to keep on walking seeping out at the edges.

And yet….

Tommy's eyes are glossy, the dark blue of the falling night sky, lost in a memory of great importance and unwilling to return to the present.

The ocean in his eyes had settled, the spark died.

His clothes, torn and battered and bloodstained, hang off his slender frame awkwardly, and his bandaged arms show the sign of hardship greater than any child should know.

There's an emptiness there, a hollowed shape that Techno can't seem to grasp no matter how far he reaches, and Tommy flinches from where Techno's hand twitches on the blanket.

He wants to ask about what happened so desperately, but only manages to hold up a single golden apple almost accusingly.

Tommy winces as if Techno had slapped him.

It had taken Techno half a day to realize some of his supplies were missing. At first, it was only inconspicuous things, things he could have considerably just misplaced or lost. Then, they started getting bigger - golden apples and potions and enough iron to start manufacturing armor for an army.

It took Techno the other half of the day to find Tommy passed out in a small corner of his basement, surrounded by stolen goods.

_(Of course the hypothermia had been his first concern, how his brother had looked more like a corpse - skin gray from the snow, lips blue and bleeding sluggishly from where his teeth had worried on them.)_

Tommy scrambles back a little, almost unnoticeable, and starts emptying his pockets. There's some potions, a bit of iron, a string, some old pictures, some food and a stone sword, all laid out on the bed.

And Tommy, Tommy smiles at him as if he were expecting praise, or a pat on the back, or- 

Techno blinks.

Then slowly, he begins sorting through the things.

"Hm. Golden apples? Nah, you can keep that, don't need them. Iron? Well, whatever, I have enough of that anyway… You won't need to hoard the food though, don't worry, Phil has left us with enough of that. Sword? We can throw that away, I'll make you a better one tomorrow. Pictures…" 

Techno pauses. The pictures range from old family photos, to blurry photos of Tubbo that must've been as recent as a few months back. They're all a little worn around the edges, and he can see tear tracks on some of them - Wilbur's face on the christmas photo is almost unrecognizable because of how the salty tears made the paper welled. 

"... You can keep the pictures, they weren't even mine to begin with. That's that, I suppose. D'you want some soup?"

Tommy blinks, once, twice, and when he breaks out in tears, Techno is entirely lost.

\---

Overnight, the heavy rainfall has turned into snow and Techno watches Tommy gaze longingly out the window. 

He sighs, a little theatrical, and throws his heavy coat around Tommy's shoulders.

"You can go outside for a bit if you promise to come inside as soon as you feel cold, okay? Don't need you to get sick again.

And when he sees Tommy stand outside and stretch out his hand to catch the snowflakes, he can almost kid himself into thinking his brother's eyes seem a little brighter. 

\---

Tommy watches Technoblade whenever he can, in the little moments where Techno is too absorbed with something else and seems to have forgotten about him entirely.

He watches, and he waits.

What for, Tommy isn't sure yet.

(Or, more accurately; he's too sure. He's waiting for the day Techno snaps, the day he finally drops the facade and tells him to drop all his belongings to be blown up again or flat out just leaves him to die because Dream is his only friend, and nobody can be trusted. If he cared, he would've shown up. If he cared-) 

"Tommy! Come inside, I can hear your teeth chattering from in here!" 

Techno doesn't ask for his coat back.

(Sometimes, Tommy thinks he can see memories of green at the edge of his vision, floating from windows to far-off trees to Techno's eyes, pitying even now. In those moments, he drops everything he has to the ground and cowers, like the stupid child he is, and waits for Techno to burn all that remains of him down. But he never does.) 

He watches the way Techno braids his long hair with delicate fingers, and looks to his own overgrown curls. They already reach his shoulders now, but Tommy can't find the energy to cut them - too much effort for something so small, so meaningless. 

(Almost as meaningless as a dirt tower built to never be climbed down again. Almost as meaningless as his small reflection in Techno's reading glasses, perched on his nose whenever Tommy stumbles into his room in the middle of the night.) 

Tommy watches him cook, and forge armor and weapons without a single thought, as if it didn't mean anything.

As if Tommy wasn't prepared to throw it all back at his feet with only a single word.

(As if Tommy's shadow didn't linger behind him when he stood by his window at night - a dark presence, calculating the height, preparing to push him off.) 

\---

In the end, it's Techno's idea to go to L'Manberg.

\---

Tommy thinks he might- 

Well.

L'Manberg stands before him as a fortress and he- 

Tubbo- 

Tommy can't think. Everything feels so big and so small, as if it were all closing in on him and god, if they see him, will they kill him? What if they see Tubbo and- 

No, no, no, this is his home, they wouldn't, or well, they would, but not with- 

He wishes Dream were here.

Dream is his only friend, isn't he? He must be, because he always came to visit and nobody else did that, no one, they didn't come even when he invited them and Tommy knows what that means, that his own family left him and maybe, maybe Dream was right and everyone does hate him, but Dream has always been there for him so he should- 

Should do the one thing asked of him.

And his armor presses down on him, vice like, suffocating under the sun and it's dragging him down, down further and further and

_(there's water, so much water and Tommy's choking, miserably choking on water and his lungs ache with each desperate attempt to breathe.)_

Where's the honor in a death like this, where's the sense of greatness? 

No martyr jumps of their own volition, none dream of thrashing waves and wake with water bubbling in their throat and god, his armor, there's only one way to save him- 

Slowly, with shaking hands, Tommy unbuckles his helmet, and throws it on the ground.

Through blurry eyes, he thinks he can almost see it sink below him, to the sea floor.

It feels a little lighter like this, and he moves on to his chestplate, his leggings, until all iron has drowned beneath him and suddenly, he's flying, drifting, and Dream would be so proud of him, wouldn't he?

But the way Techno is looking at him is ever so stoic, so it couldn't have been enough because if it were Techno would tell him (Dream always did, at least), and if taking off his armour wasn't necessary, Techno would laugh at him and not just look through that damned mask as if Tommy had done something wrong- 

"We're leavin'", Techno mutters, and all Tommy can do is nod.

\---

That night, Tommy watches the snow fall outside.

He wonders what it feels like to fall, and feels almost sick for the sudden, aching longing in his stomach. 

Techno sits in the far corner of the room, reading some pretentious book or other and paying Tommy no mind.

It feels achingly familiar, intimate, with the fireplace crackling in the background and the soft sound of their breathing mingling into one. 

He wonders if Techno is mad at him, or the thousand different things his silence could mean - there's always something hidden about Techno, something indecipherable in the ruby of his eyes or curve of his lip, almost mystic in his realness. There's no resolution to his pondering, no moment of great realization; just his brother and him, breathing in tandem, synchronicity despite all differences.

And Tommy ponders if his brother would care if he left right now, if he sat in the snow until he froze, if that perfect mask of his would break for just a single second; or if his brother was really the king of apathy, god of the dead. 

Almost as if Techno could hear his thoughts he beckons him over with a lazy hand movement.

"You know Tommy, I've been thinkin'-" Techno hums quietly, and Tommy freezes.

What if Techno wants him gone now? What if his stupid breakdown had been the last straw and Techno had finally realized how _stupid_ and _weak_ and _pathetic_ he was and how he could never be of use to Techno, who was always so strong and reliable and Dream was right, wasn't he? Nobody ever cared- 

"D'you want me to braid your hair? It's long enough now, and I thought it might bother you a bit with how it's always getting into your eyes…" Techno trails off awkwardly, almost reminiscent of the boy he used to be before, quiet and reserved.

Tommy blinks. Then, slowly, he nods.

And with Techno's fingers in his hair, the warmth of the fireplace and his brother's soft breathing, Tommy falls asleep - almost happy, for the first time since he left home.

\---

The mirage is bound to shatter.

\---

When Dream comes, it's with the ice cold of an arctic winter, and the smell of death clinging to his coat.

He's always been like that, in a way, just as much a master of death as Techno, yet ever more comfortable in his role. 

Because Techno had the bravery to hesitate. Dream didn't.

Now, he stands on his reflections doorstep (nothing but an echo of what Techno could've been, if Phil hadn't taken the sword from his hands with promises of love), covered in arctic fractals and crushing the last of spring's bloom under his boots. 

He smiles, under his mask and false pretenses, almost real.

Techno gives him as nonchalant a stare as he can muster - he hopes Dream can't notice how it cracks slightly when the other moves to step inside. 

There's a certain smugness to him, a confidence that reeks of bloodshed and gunpowder and itches in Techno's nose, makes something deep inside him coil into itself.

He thinks he can understand Tommy now, a little bit, as the last puzzle piece falling into place, the last snowflake hitting the ground - Dream takes up the whole room, and the spotlight burns bright on the little skin he has left exposed, giving him the glow of something ethereal, god-like if not for the drying blood on his weapons.

He thinks of Tommy trying to shrink into himself, back into the shadows every chance Techno lets him have.

And he realizes he hates Dream.

It's a low, simmering heat, his hatred, somewhere deep in his gut, burning away his joints, and making him reach for his sword, something going rigid as a spring pulled taunt, ready to pounce.

"Techno, my friend! How're you doing?" Dream's voice reaches a crescendo of friendliness too early in the sentence to signify actual companionship.

Techno gives him a _look,_ but knows he must play his cards right, or else he'll end up as Wilbur, dead and replaced by something so unspeakably more naive, or worse, like Phil - imprisoned, chained to the very land he wishes to escape, unable to change his fate. 

He thinks of Tommy, alone in the ice. 

"What d'you want, Dream? A house tour?"

Dream laughs, actually throws his head back in laughter, painfully young and naive.

But all illusion of innocence twists and turns as smoke into thin air, and bends into something unrecognizable when Dream turns sombre again, eerily still.

"Not exactly. You see, there's been… an issue." 

Techno raises an eyebrow silently. An issue. How ominous.

"Tommy has… left.", Dream continues, and the disbelief in his voice almost makes Techno chuckle, "So I wondered if you'd seen him, somewhere around here. There was a tower there and I thought he'd, y'know- nevermind, but I know he's still alive by now." 

The echo of a frenzied feeling tears at the edges of his mind - _tower_ , and _I thought he'd y'know_ \- sharply bounces through his mind as a mantra, and oh god, he had never known, hadn't even thought-

(Tommy's wistful looks out of windows covered in snow. Tommy's wounds he never bothered to take care of. Tommy's reluctance to eat. Tommy _-_ Tommy _, Tommy, **Tommy-**_ )

Techno draws in a sharp breath through his nose, and hopes Dream interprets it as malice, or derogatory laughter at his brother's presumed stupidity.

"I take it you haven't seen him then?", Dream says with a smirk.

And Techno? Techno gathers his strength, and _laughs_.

"What, you think he'd come to me? He knows he isn't welcome here, and I'd kill him just as I killed his miserable little friend." 

That seems to please Dream, and he nods with more vigour. 

"Seems we agree on one thing at last, Techno. He deserves to die." 

And with that, he saunters out the door, never even looking at the barrel Tommy had shoved himself into just a few seconds before Techno had gone to open the door, soft, hiccuping sobs now escaping from inside the wood.

Techno presses his knuckles into his eyes until his vision cracks, and wills the tears away. 

\---

When Techno pulls Tommy out of his hiding place, the younger brother falls into his arms and cries.

Techno holds him, and lets himself be overwhelmed by an all-encompassing grief.

There's nothing more to be said: Two brothers, hurt and broken and in pieces, holding each other, learning how to be whole again.

Learning how to trust.

\---

Somedays, Tommy doesn't come out of his room. Just stares out the windows in a sort of dull shock - something like remembrance haunting his too old gaze and shaking limbs.

On those days, Techno wants to take a pickaxe and carve each of Dream's teeth out of his treacherous mouth separately, slowly, until his mask will crack and he'll choke on his own, disgusting blood. 

Instead he works in the forge - crafting weapons and armour until the fire burns his hands into an aching mess of flesh, and his irises burn with a blue flame.

He'll head for Tommy's room in the evening, on those days, hand him armour and weapons with enchantments so powerful Phil would've reprimanded him for ever using them.

_(Magic is an evil thing, he'd say, and it can kill just as easily as it protects.)_

But Techno thinks Phil would understand, because it makes Tommy smile, gives him part of his brother back, if only for a second.

And something goes unspoken in these gifts, something ingrained in the universe itself, carved into the very veins of the earth - I _will protect you. You will be safe with me._

And when Tommy smiles at him, Techno knows he's understood.

\----

Tommy is a puzzle, a cipher Techno doesn't know how to decode, a book written in a language he has yet to learn.

And it will take weeks for him to realize there's no magic word to make it all come undone, to untie the black threads of ink twisting Tommy's mind and free him of his pain.

It will take months for him to realize he will never truly understand his brother again, will never fully know the extent of Dream's poison and why Tommy will behave in certain ways. 

It will take years for him to come to terms with that.

But what's time against love? 

Techno is willing to let centuries of learning and tracking every step carefully rain upon them if it means Tommy will someday be able to be okay again.

He knows Tommy will never be the same.

But that doesn't really matter, does it? 

Because they're all changing, twisting in their own strange ways, aching and healing. Techno's not the same person he was yesterday, will not be the same version of himself tomorrow - but change brings opportunities, and he's willing to take them; here, now, with Tommy at his side.

Because they are still brothers. And that's all that matters.

\---

And really, how do you cope when you've been so many people all at once, now lost to time? When there's so many parts you have played, lifes you have led? What becomes of you when the only name you can remember is amnesia?

Tommy has never changed, never wavered, never halted. His ideals are the same, beliefs never changing and though his knuckles are bruised and mind spinning, he's still the same boy that had fought for independence with his friends.

Right? 

It's sort of hard to believe, when sometimes his nightmares have him screaming for Dream even when he now knows that that man was never his friend, when he burns his things in a desperate attempt to please Techno, when he breaks and breaks into pieces yet tinier.

But healing takes time.

And sometimes, he can look at the sunset without thinking of his best friend, the missing puzzle piece, sometimes he can appreciate beauty without pain, sometimes he can laugh and be himself without fear of repercussions.

Such is Tommy's victory: Small, gentle, ultimately meaningless (as all things), but soft and loving as the embrace of his brother.

It's a simple phrase; "In the end, you will not be alone." 

Tommy finally starts to believe it.

\---

**Author's Note:**

> hi everyone, and merry (late) christmas to all that celebrate!  
> this story was originally written as a christmas present for my wonderful friend zea, who i really owe a lot (even the inspiration to write this lmao!), but i thought i'd gift something to all of you too, for supporting me and my works and giving me the courage to finally start posting on here for real!  
> so see this a present to all of you guys too! thank you for everything.
> 
> i tried to end this story on a positive note - a sort of reminder that things can be bad, but will ultimately get better. it seemed like a nice note to end the year on, something hopeful for all of us! because you are never truly alone, no matter how it might feel, and even the worst times are leading to an uphill climb. it can seem as though the stretch of darkness has been going on for forever, but there's always something light at the end - and if you ever need someone to talk to, feel free to hit me up, my dms are always open! 
> 
> my twitter!
> 
> leave a comment to receive my undying love & affection (lol)


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